The last few weeks have been some of the most stressful and emotional periods I’ve dealt with since beginning to tackle this whole infertility thing. Trying to reconcile my how-I-thought-it-would-be (my eggs and my husband’s sperm) with the what-needs-to-be (some other woman’s eggs and my husband’s sperm) was, and still is, extremely difficult to work through. I did lots of research, asked questions of members in various online infertility support groups, talked to a friend who has used donor eggs (thank you for answering all of my questions as honestly as you did!), talked with a therapist, spoke with my parents, spent lots of time talking with my husband, and asked the egg donor coordinator at my fertility clinic a gazillion questions. Not only did I struggle with accepting that an egg donor was necessary to continue this process, but also struggled with using an unknown donor versus a known donor. In the end, my husband and I made the decision to use an unknown donor. And thus began a new path.
When you’re looking for an egg donor, not all donor profiles are the same. Some women have undergone extensive genetic testing so the recipient knows the eggs aren’t carriers of some 40-something possible issues. Others only undergo the basic level of genetic testing. All provide photos of themselves as babies, toddlers, kids, and adults. Some provide extensive medical history of themselves and their families (siblings, parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents) and others give only the most basic information. Some women provide detailed answers to various personality-related questions, and others give a single sentence. All of the information (except the genetic testing) is self-reported, so you hope they’re being honest. You also have to trust that the egg bank did proper screening and the thorough psychological testing they claim to do before allowing a woman to donate her eggs, (Side note: Did you know that women are only allowed to donate 5 times? They could go to a different clinic and start donating again, but I can’t fathom doing five cycles of IVF. I could barely deal with four cycles.) The other thing we looked at in the donor profiles was whether or not she was open to being contacted by the potential child after the child turns 18.
When I first started looking at the profiles, I didn’t find anyone that I liked. Nobody was close enough to “me,” and I despaired of finding a donor that I’d find acceptable. I’d had conversations with friends who looked through sperm donor banks to find their perfect guy donor, and we laughed about their profiles and personal essays. But it’s very weird to look through profiles of other women to try and find one that most closely resembles me physically and in personality. Finally, though, I was able to narrow the 50-something profiles I reviewed down to four options. I asked my husband for his thoughts on those four, and he narrowed it down to two. It was just bizzarre to ask my husband to identify the women who are most like me so we can mix his sperm with their eggs. But together we narrowed the two options down to one, placed a hold on that donor’s eggs, confirmed with each other that we really were going to do this, and paid the egg bank so those would definitely be our eggs. The eggs already exist and are frozen (there are 8), so we don’t have to wait for the woman to go through an IVF cycle. Also, she apparently likes the same musicals I do, so I’m hoping that’s a good sign. This is a first-time donor, so there’s no history available of successful pregnancies with her eggs, but we decided to go for it anyway.
Meanwhile, the egg donor coordinator mailed me a thick packet full of information and paperwork. Among the various forms we had to fill out and sign was a very long checklist, and until the checklist was complete, we couldn’t talk any timing. The checklist included the following:
New patient evaluation/re-consultation appointment with doctor.
Cryo donor egg consult w/donor egg coordinator.
Completed labs within the year
Me: HIV/Hepatitis panel, blood work to confirm my blood type, and blood work to confirm that I have antibodies for rubella and varicella (chicken pox).
Husband: HIV/Hepatitis panel
Saline sonogram or trial transfer within the past 6 months.
Women’s wellness visit (OB-GYN) and pap smear completed with the past year.
Mammogram results from within the past year
Psych eval for me + husband with their recommended provider or one of our choice that is first approved by the doctor.
Most of those were pretty easy to check-off. The first two I had completed simply because of the many questions I asked after my last failed IVF cycle and because I called the egg donor coordinator every 3 days until she finally returned my call (I’ve since learned she’s great at responding to emails). Item # 4 was completed because of the failed transfer I had in November. In December, I squeezed in my annual OB-GYN appointment and mammogram right before the year ended since I had already met the year’s deductible and wouldn’t have to pay any of that out-of-pocket, so items #5 and #6 only required me to call the office and have the records faxed to the fertility clinic. The labs were not quite as easy. Both my husband and I had done HIV/Hepatitis tests at the start of my last IVF cycle (what a fiasco that was), so we were in the clear for those. I’ve known my blood type forever because I used to donate blood regularly, but they couldn’t take my word for it, and I no longer have the records that indicate I’ve been vaccinated for rubella and chicken pox. So I had to get the blood work done. Imagine my surprise when it came back that I didn’t have enough antibodies in my system for rubella immunity! Not only did I have the MMR vaccine as a kid, but I’d actually gotten rubella as a 9-month-old. The mysteries of the human body. In any case, that meant that I had to figure out where to get a rubella vaccination. My doctor’s office told me they couldn’t do it and sent me to the health department. It took almost two hours at the health department to get the vaccination and get out of there, and that was with only two other people in the waiting area with me. That left the psych eval. Luckily I was able to get that scheduled fairly quickly, and the therapist was able to provide her report within the next business day.
I knew the therapist had provided her report to the egg donor coordinator by end-of-day yesterday, which meant I spent all day today waiting for the email letting me know the checklist was complete and we could move forward. That email finally arrived, and now I finally have some vague sense of the timing of everything, which means I have a better idea of what I can and cannot do over the next six weeks. This includes joining my family for a Passover seder, another work trip to Chicago, and two friends’ engagement party. Not knowing for the past month whether or not I could do all of these things was making me a little nuts. (That’s what happens when you’re a planner.)
The timeline is this: I finish out my current pack of birth control pills, get my period, start taking the pills again on day 2 of my period, take them for 14 days, stop, start taking the estradiol pills on day 4 after stopping the birth control, take those for around 13 days (my husband gets to start antibiotics on my third day of the estradiol pills), and then go to the doctor so he can see if the estrogen has done its job and my uterine lining has thickened enough. If yes, then my husband goes back to the doctor the next day to provide his contribution to everything, I start the progesterone vaginal suppositories and every-other-day progesterone-in-oil injections, 6 days later we go back for the transfer (by this point, it will have been at least 28 days since the rubella vaccine, which is the minimum number of days required before attempting to get pregnant due to potential birth defects), and then it’s a lot of waiting. Again. At some point before the doctor’s appointment, the egg donor’s frozen eggs are shipped from the egg bank in Fairfax, VA down to my fertility clinic in Jacksonville, FL.
So here we are. I have a plan. I have a tentative timeline. Well, I have a plan and timeline until something goes wrong (like another cyst seen during the monitoring appointment). But I can work with what we know for the time being, and that means my stress level and emotional anxiety have been greatly reduced. Not eliminated. Just reduced. There’s no guarantee that this will work, but there’s a better chance of success than existed using my own eggs.